Any one have experience using a programmer to code or modify a forum?

Looking broadly for guidance

[Webwork]

Anyone have knowledge or experience with hand rolling software for running a forum? How big of a project was it? Expense range? At this stage of the game is there really a need to reinvent the wheel or, for a custom job, should I expect a coder to build upon what's already out there in terms of ASP or PHP?

Anyone pay for an extensive custom modification of a free BBS, like PHPBB or Snitz? Just how much can one find oneself spending and what did you get for the expense?

Among the features I'd like to have coded into the program would be community modification based upon certain member variables.

I'm looking to develop a solution that I can apply across a number of sites. Likely a MySQL or MSSQL backend putting out search engine friendly pages.

Anyone use an overseas developer to build or modify a BBS? What was your experience? Are there specialists in this realm?

[rogerd]

I'm quite leery of hand-coding a forum from scratch, Webwork. A powerful forum is a very complex piece of code, and a new version will go through months of beta versions by thousands of users. Of necessity, an individually coded forum is likely to be a lot simpler.

I've used standard hacks written by others for commercial forum software, and I've had some custom-coded. My experience in hiring project programmers has varied from abysmal (failed project, nothing delivered) to brilliant (executed within a day and better than expected).

If you are interested in tweaking a forum, I'd first check the software site's forums to see if a pre-existing hack has been written. If not, these forums often have a topic where you can request hacks or advertise for a programmer. Usually, you'll be better off hiring a programmer experienced with that software than simply finding a competent programmer who has to learn the software. (Having said that, my best experience was with a programmer was very, very good and could code rings around most of the forum hackers.)

Sites like elance or rentacoder are good for finding programmers, but my forum-related projects there haven't drawn responses from experienced forum pros; the forum sites were more productive. The downside is that you'll have to work out payment details yourself; the forum sites won't have pre-established escrow procedures.